Took me 6 months to fix my grocery budget because I kept forgetting one thing

I kept wondering why my grocery budget was blowing up every month, and it turned out I was forgetting to account for those little $5 and $6 snack runs I do after work. Took me way too long to realize I needed to add a "random snacks" line item lol. Has anyone else had a budget category sneak up on them like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

young.emma4d ago

oh but that's actually not quite right - you didn't forget to account for the snacks, you forgot to account for the pattern of buying snacks. Like, everyone knows they buy snacks sometimes, but it's super easy to think "oh it's just this one time" and then it happens 3 times a week for 6 months straight. What you really needed was to track the habit itself, not just the category. I had the same issue with coffee runs where I'd think "this is just a one-off" but then I'd do it every single Tuesday and Thursday without noticing. Once I started tracking the actual days I bought things instead of just the categories, it finally clicked for me. The real trick is catching those small repeating actions masquerading as one-time purchases.

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brianellis4d ago

Yeah that's a solid point... the habit part is what gets you every time.